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Gurgling Noise When Heat Is On

by Monochromatic, February 20, 2008



Hey guys, I have a problem that's more of an annoyance than anything. My heater in my Corolla works great, but there's a noticeable gurgling sound that occurs every few minutes. I'll turn my car on and then turn the heat on to "LO." Within seconds, a 3-4 second long gurgling sound will occur. It sounds similar to sucking liquid through a straw, if that makes any sense. If I could locate it, it sounds like it's coming from deep behind the stereo deck, or from the engine compartment maybe (it's not loud, but noticeably audible). It will go away for a few minutes, then I'll hear a gurgle for about a second, and this behavior continues every 5 minutes or less as long as the heater is turned on.

What could be causing this sound, and is it something I can fix?

Thanks!

-M

I think I remember a post a while back about something similar. Don't remember if there was a solution though.

Jay in MA

Hey guys, I have a problem that's more of an annoyance than anything. My heater in my Corolla works great, but there's a noticeable gurgling sound that occurs every few minutes. I'll turn my car on and then turn the heat on to "LO." Within seconds, a 3-4 second long gurgling sound will occur. It sounds similar to sucking liquid through a straw, if that makes any sense. If I could locate it, it sounds like it's coming from deep behind the stereo deck, or from the engine compartment maybe (it's not loud, but noticeably audible). It will go away for a few minutes, then I'll hear a gurgle for about a second, and this behavior continues every 5 minutes or less as long as the heater is turned on.

What could be causing this sound, and is it something I can fix?

Thanks!

-M

Max

My car does this too. It hasn't been anything but a vague annoyance in the six years I've owned/driven it, tho, so I just left it alone. It gets a little louder if I have the defrost on with the heat.

Sounds like coolant sloshing around in the heater core. Especially if you just had a system cooling drain/refill or coolant flush done within the past several weeks. The system may still be trying to burp air trapped in the system. This can also happen if the radiator cap is sucking in air or if the coolant recovery reservior is too low - usually heat works normally. More of a nuisance than anything - affects all cars at some point. Nothing to worry about, unless you start noticing wet carpeting, poor drivability, overheating issues, heating issue, or loss of coolant. At that point - should be pretty easy to determine what the problem is.

Thanks for the responses. Fish, is there any way to manually burp the air trapped in the heater core?

Not really - Just keep running the heater and keep an eye on the recovery tank - I don't think I've ever seen a bleeder valve on a heater core in a car.



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